Argentine President Javier Milei was planning to go to Washington this week for the big World Cup event organized by Donald Trump. However, he abruptly canceled, in part due to a growing controversy in domestic football.
An increasingly public dispute with the head of the Argentine Football Association (AFA) was one of the reasons he did not participate in the 2026 FIFA World Cup draw, according to a person close to Milei’s decision. The slow progress of a trade agreement with the US was also another reason for the libertarian leader, who travels a lot, to stay at home.
The president and federation chief Claudio Tapia are at loggerheads over Milei’s attempt to allow private ownership of teams in the football-loving country. Tapia is due to attend Friday’s ceremony, which divides the 48 competing countries into 12 groups for the first round, so sharing the stage would have been awkward.
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Last-minute changes made by the AFA to local tournaments also broke a fragile truce between the two men ahead of the World Cup — likely Lionel Messi’s last — and thrust Argentina’s beloved national sport into the political arena.
For Milei, the moment is delicate. The government is preparing a major legislative offensive next week, so it does not want to alienate allies or risk being blamed for any turmoil ahead of the world’s most-watched sporting event next year.
“Milei cannot afford to provoke a crisis in football now,” said Lucas Romero, head of political consultancy Synopsis, warning that any move against the AFA could trigger sanctions from the International Football Federation (FIFA) against the national team. “That’s a dangerous boomerang.”
Milei is pushing to open Argentine football to private capital in a bid to attract foreign investment, posing a direct challenge to the AFA, which oversees a system historically run by nonprofit organizations. The South American nation is one of the few major sports nations that still prohibits private ownership of clubs.
A 2024 presidential decree would allow teams to become public limited companies and receive external investors, if their members approve. But the AFA rejected Milei’s initiative and a court later froze the measure.
Argentina went into a national frenzy in 2022 when Messi and his teammates won the country’s third World Cup in a dramatic penalty shootout in Qatar. But at home, fans increasingly lament a domestic league they see as chaotic — marked by constant rule changes, unstable relegation formats and a First Division expanded by nearly a dozen smaller clubs.
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That frustration exploded on November 20, when the AFA abruptly created a new trophy and crowned Rosario Central — a team that topped the table halfway through the season — with a title that didn’t exist the day before.
“That was the last straw,” said Ariel Senosiain, a prominent sports journalist. Tapia faced a barrage of boos in stadiums and outrage on social media. The federation, however, maintained its position and punished Estudiantes de La Plata, the only club to publicly oppose the decision and one of the few vocal supporters of the privatization advocated by Milei.
Milei quickly arrived on the scene. On social media, he posted photos wearing the Estudiantes shirt, which also appeared over his presidential chair in official images. Although the president avoided naming Tapia directly, Senator Patricia Bullrich led the charge.
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Estudiantes “is with the true fans. Tapia is with the old political class and the same old mafia,” said Bullrich, Milei’s former security minister, in a post on X.
“The government sees the growing public anger against Tapia and tries to ride the wave,” said Romero. The AFA did not respond to requests for comment.
Tapia has long-standing ties to the Peronist movement, which has governed Argentina for nearly three of the four decades since the restoration of democracy. During the 2023 presidential campaign, the AFA leadership openly supported the Peronist candidate Sergio Massa, Milei’s rival who ended up losing in the second round.
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The latest drama also comes as Tapia faces public scrutiny over his wealth. He does not receive a salary as head of the AFA — he does from two other jobs — but he has declared seven properties in his name, in addition to an annual net income of more than US$565,000. Questions have also been raised about a condominium outside Buenos Aires with a helipad that is reportedly not registered with the Argentine aviation authority.
Argentine football clubs, in turn, have been worn down by years of crisis. Even with the recent relief from a stronger weight and some high-profile signings, fans still see a poorly managed league — and a growing gap in relation to Brazilian rivals.
“The Argentine football model is broken,” said local fan Ignacio Sarraute. “The current league is unsustainable. It’s almost unwatchable. Why would anyone invest?”
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Brazilian teams have won the last seven editions of the Copa Libertadores — South America’s premier club competition and regional obsession — supported by stronger TV contracts, bigger sponsorship markets and a much deeper player sales market. The last Argentine team to win the championship was River Plate, in 2018.
Guillermo Tofoni, a longtime sports entrepreneur and supporter of Milei’s private equity model, argues that constant changes in formats make the league difficult to market. “Every year clubs take on more debt and end up selling their best players just to balance the books,” he said. “Fix the structure and the investment could reach $3 billion.”
Still, many argue that private money is not the answer to everything. Defenders of the current model say clubs in Argentina play a broader community role, supporting dozens of nonprofit activities that could disappear under corporate ownership. And even if the law allowed it, it’s not clear that foreign money would flow in en masse.
“There is an assumption that a wave of investors will arrive, but that’s not how it works,” said Mariano Elizondo, director of the sports studies center at Universidade Austral. “A lot of clubs would never attract investors — and a lot of big ones wouldn’t want them.”
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